


A Whole Damn Pineapple

by SamtheFan99



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Angst, Drunk Sex, Drunk Shassie, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Mental Health Crisis, Psychic, Questionable consent (see: Drunk Sex), Shassie, Suicidal Lassiter, desperation sex, emo coffee time, handjobs only, mention of suicide, quick lil fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27029707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamtheFan99/pseuds/SamtheFan99
Summary: Shawn and Gus haven’t heard from Lassiter since the divorce. They pay him a visit to make sure he’s okay. (Spoiler: he’s not)
Relationships: Carlton Lassiter & Shawn Spencer
Comments: 11
Kudos: 33





	1. An Introduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my favorite thing in the world. Just so you know :)

The atrocity of it is almost too much for poor Gus to handle. 

Regardless of popular opinion, he isn’t bothered by very much, mostly blood, corpses, vomit, confrontation, cedar-scented anything, plot holes, hangnails, woolen blankets, and too-absurd-to-be-true daily happenings. 

“How do you lose a whole damn pineapple, Shawn?” Gus chastises his childhood friend. 

“I don’t know man, one minute it was in my hand, the next, not so much.”

“You paid four dollars for that thing only to lose it within a day?”

“Of course not, buddy. You paid four dollars for that thing just for me to lose it within a day.” Shawn gives him an amicable slap on the back that makes Gus hitch a little. “We should get going, though, so we can get home before nine. They’re doing a Fast and Furious marathon on channel eleven.”

Gus is about to object (the thematic portrayal of that series is subpar, Shawn) when Shawn leans down and plucks something from Gus’s refrigerator, unceremoniously shoving it into his front pocket before turning on his heel and leaving the apartment.


	2. The Trio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my favorite thing in the world. Just so you know :)

Carlton Lassiter is standing by his mailbox when the car pulls up. He retreats as soon as he sees it. 

It’s not often that a car as ridiculous as the Blueberry pulls up in front of Lassiter’s house. He likes to believe his property and its immediate surroundings are dignified and elegant, representative of the respectable man he tries to embody. The bright blue Echo, named for a fruit, is a stark contrast to the muted and inoffensive colors of the house’s exterior. 

It doesn’t quite register until he sees the dynamic duo, phony psychic and pharmaceutical salesman extraordinaire, leave the car and approach his front door, with a somewhat goofy but mostly pleasant wave each. 

“Oh, Christ,” Lassiter mutters to himself, retreating inside.

Shawn skillfully catches the door before Lassie can shut them out. 

“Hey, Lassafrass!” Shawn greets him cheerfully. 

“What in the everloving fuck are you pinheads doing on my porch?” Lassiter snaps. 

Gus’s eyebrows furrow. He knows Lassie well enough after all these years, and he has never known him to say ‘fuck’ so freely. The detective swears like a minutely censored sailor and reliably sticks to the more intermediate foul language. 

His mental state must be worse than he and Shawn had anticipated. 

They share a glance that confirms they’d both heard that f-bomb and drawn the same conclusion. 

“Just checking on you, buddy,” Shawn says, his chipper tone sounding more forced with every word. 

Gus’s frown deepens. Despite the impenetrable facade Shawn wears on the daily, he really is a sensitive guy. Gus and Juliet have mused together about it more than once, that such an absolute lack of vulnerability had to be carefully fabricated to protect a soft and squishy interior. 

Evidently, Shawn has already begun to absorb the waves of negativity Lassiter emits. Gus can immediately tell when Shawn gets into this state, and though they have never spoken of it, they both acknowledge Gus’s role in these situations as the anchor, the home base. The foundation of their friendship allows this exchange, and allows it to happen wordlessly, effortlessly. 

Gus understands Shawn to an extent at which not even he understands himself. Shawn’s empathic reactions always seem to take him by surprise. Gus knows it’s because of his denial, his dedication to the paradigm of invulnerability, that dooms him to these spouts. 

“I’m fine,” Carlton dismisses, moving to shut the door again. 

Guster raises an eyebrow at this response, how much it reminds him of Shawn. 

Shawn adamantly rejects Lassie’s rebuff. He had been pretty insistent about their visit here today, and Gus knows there’s no way they’ll leave so soon. 

Shawn has been in Lassiter’s house before, and it was borderline overwhelming to his hyperobservant mind. It was a game of connect-the-dots at lightning speed, picking up on the smallest details of his dwelling and instantaneously (and unintentionally) attaching them to the fragments of Lassie’s personality he’d let slip over the years. His decorating style, a framed photo of his mother, the wear on one side of the couch— it was all rather telling and, admittedly, powerfully intimate. 

There’s something about the way guarded people conceal themselves in their own heads that makes their unraveling that much more intense. Shawn and Lassie have this in common, though for someone with Shawn’s abilities, stepping into Lassie’s place renders him speechless every time. 

He feels almost like an intruder, or maybe a thief, hoarding all this pickpocketed personal information away. 

Lassie, after his first objection, doesn’t have the wherewithal to do much in the area of kicking them out. 

Shawn and Gus trail their host into his kitchen, where he pours himself a drink from a glass that has evidently already been recently filled with (and emptied of) some dark liquor. Likely the aged Bowmore Lassie’s serving now. 

“I brought you a gift,” Shawn announces, revealing an eggplant from his front pocket and dropping it unceremoniously on the counter. “A token of our effervescent friendship.”

“Did you steal that from my fridge, Shawn?” Gus accuses. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gus, it’s just today’s pocket produce. Tomorrow might be a mangosteen or a tangelo or a turducken.”

“A turducken is not a plant, Shawn,” Gus holds up his hand to silence the psychic, “and you have not heard it both ways.”

“What do you two want, really?” Lassie asks, unnervingly defeated. There’s no venom, no real malice, unlike his initial greeting. 

It’s disarming. Borderline disturbing. This isn’t Lassie. This is even less Lassie than the drunk Lassie at Tom Blair’s that one time, the Lassie who lamented his sulking guts right into Shawn's unsuspecting lap, and that Lassie was so not-Lassie that Shawn didn’t know how to behave with all those sulking guts everywhere. 

This man was the least Lassiest Lassie to ever Lassie, even with Tom Blair’s Lassie in the running. 

“We’re worried about you, brother,” Gus tells him diplomatically. 

Lassie scowls at the affectionate nickname. 

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m fine.” He clears his throat and gestures toward the entryway with his half empty drink. “You can go now.”

“You‘ve been gone all week,” Shawn says, lifting his fingers to his temple. Not that Lassie will even believe his performance, but it’s always worth a shot. Unfortunately, though, Lassie’s depression has sucked his eccentricities away and left Shawn barebones, so it won't be much of a performance. “Divorce. Right?”

Lassie sighs deeply. “How did you know?”

He hadn’t justified his leave of absence. Nobody at the station should know unless Victoria told them herself. 

He hadn’t even confided in Juliet, and she’d confessed to Shawn just how much that bothered her. 

But she’d also mentioned to him that Lassie had gone to some bougie restaurant with his wife, hopeful for reconciliation, and then he was absent for the week following. 

Shawn had considered a celebratory vacation, maybe a second honeymoon, but, oddly enough, he’d genuinely felt a shift in the universe that told him fate hadn’t been so kind to the detective. 

And he’d been right, but he’s too concerned now to boast to Gus that he’s likely a real psychic, and how ‘fake it till you make it’ isn’t as stupid of a philosophy as Gus claims. 

“Sorry, buddy,” Shawn says, his voice low and sincere. 

“My condolences,” Gus adds politely. 

Guster, as much as he likes the detective, isn’t exactly close with the guy, and despite his well-rounded emotional intelligence, there simply isn’t as much substance between them as there is between Lassiter and Shawn. 

They have more in common, Gus suspects. Two repressed, adult men, unable to express themselves independent of their faux personas, only one of them uses regressive humor, and the other, the stark opposite, a hardened outward projection that conveniently conceals all of his fears and insecurities. 

Finally, Lassie relents. “You like whiskey?”

They don’t. But they both nod and accept a glass each. 

“You been drinking a lot?” Shawn asks carefully. 

“Yeah.”

“Thought about getting a shrink?”

“Yeah.”

Shawn and Gus exchange looks. 

Something is deeply, deeply wrong. 

Lassie’s not wearing his holster, but they both know him better than to think there’s not a gun within reach at all times in this house. 

Suddenly his gun obsession seems much more precarious than before. 

“I didn’t actually find one, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Lassie adds. 

“You looked?”

“Yeah, I looked.” He can feel a threat climbing up his throat, but he fires a blank. “Don’t tell anyone at the station, or I’ll…”

Shawn and Gus both perk up expectantly at the premise of being threatened, but it never comes. Lassie trails off. 

A heavy silence follows. Lassie avoids Shawn’s searching gaze that threatens to unravel him. 

“Care to sit?” Gus suggests, gesturing toward the living room. 

Lassiter shrugs one shoulder and allows Shawn to lead him by the bicep to the armchair. Shawn sits beside Gus on the loveseat and waits for Lassiter’s next words. 

Another silence descends upon them, interrupted only by the occasional clearing of the throat, the squeak of the furniture beneath them as Shawn shifts and shuffles, their asynchronous breathing. It’s surreal, sitting in Lassie’s living room, completely wordless. 

“You know, Lassie,” Shawn begins, sitting forward. “All I’d have to do is make a few phone calls and we could have some girls over. Brighten the place up a little, hm? Get things going?”

Gus smirks. He knew Shawn wouldn’t be able to stand it, watching another man so reflective of himself wallow in his own misery. Shawn recoils at the premise of true vulnerability, especially before a live audience. It must be torture to watch Lassie do it. 

But, Gus thinks, maybe this would be a good learning experience. Maybe consoling Lassiter would underline the fact that men, even the most masculine, uncompromising men, have human emotions, and it’s ultimately for the better. 

So, rather unsubtly, Gus pulls his phone from his pocket to check it, rises from the couch, and announces his departure. Shawn shoots up after him, staring in disbelief. 

“My mother texted,” Gus lies, waving his phone at Shawn. “She needs help.”

“With what?” 

“The garage, heavy stuff,” Gus tells him, leaving his whiskey on the coffee table and heading for the door. “Sorry, Lassie. My condolences, again.”

Lassie grunts dismissively. Shawn intercepts Gus moments before his hand finds the doorknob. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Shawn hisses. “We can’t leave yet!”

“We aren’t leaving, Shawn, I am,” Gus tells him pointedly. “You’re going to stay here with Lassiter and make sure he’s okay tonight.”

“Have you forgotten you’re my ride?” 

“Call a cab,” Gus says, shrugging. “This will be good for you.”

“How do you know I won’t make it worse, hm?”

“Lassie’s walking the line. You’d better get him back earthside before he pulls a gun. You and I both know they’re everywhere.”

They whisper-fight. 

Shawn relents. 

Gus leaves, smugly, and then he and the Blueberry are gone.


	3. Some Clogs and The Pope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my favorite thing in the world. Just so you know :)

Shawn doesn’t do awkward, like ever, but he especially doesn’t do awkward in situations where he can’t leave. It’s an uncomfortable slurry of these factors that finishes not only his whiskey, but Gus’s discarded whiskey as well. 

What’s worse, Shawn barely drinks. Certainly not like he used to. Yet here he is now practically guzzling the stuff. 

“This is depressing, man.” Shawn leaves the couch to go poke through Lassie’s bookshelf, even with the risk of having to tote around more intimate details about him. “We should get you out, try to have some fun. Sound good?”

Lassie watches him with painful indifference. “I never asked you to come here, Spencer, and I’m entitled to be as depressed as I like in my own home.”

“This isn’t you, man.” Shawn pulls a book out — Cavlar, A Cop’s Best Friend: True Stories of Shootout Survivors— and scoffs. They’d faced serial killers together. In fact, they’d faced death side by side more than once. 

Maybe they should know each other better. Maybe the details are his to keep, rightfully. 

“What am I then, Spencer? A divorced has-been detective, alone in his house, with nothing but the next gruesome murder to look forward to?”

“Jesus, Lassie, I get you’re hurting, but you ought to lighten up. How’s about you and me hit the town, find a turducken restaurant, and exasperate some underpaid waiters?”

Lassie glares, rising to serve himself another drink. He takes this one slowly, staring out the window at the darkening sky, clutching his glass in long, thin fingers. 

“Okay, help me out. Was it a no to the turducken or a no to the exasperating?”

“Both. I don’t want to go out with you, at all. Ever.”

Again, the insult is lacking the classic Lassie pierce. Shawn’s smile disappears. 

“C’mon, Lassie, I’m just trying to help.”

“I didn’t ask for your goddamn help, Spencer, and I didn’t ask for your goddamn pocket produce!” Lassie snaps, throwing the eggplant rather suddenly at the psychic in an abrupt flare of frustration. 

Shawn flinches. It bounces off his shoulder and onto the floor. Lassiter continues his rant. 

“Tell me now if there’s anything I’ve ever done to make you think I want your company, so that I can be sure to never do it again.”

At the risk of further upsetting him, Shawn rolls his eyes. “Please, Lassie. I get the whole tough guy act at the station, but here? It’s just you and me, man, and we have an understanding.”

“What fucking understanding?”

“Of us being unlikely friends. Compadres. Axl and Slash. Hall and Oates. Tom and Jerry.”

“Good god,” Lassiter mutters into his glass. 

“You can’t deny it, Lass. I suspect that, if I were in your shoes right now, you’d be at my place, doing your best to cheer me up.”

“I most certainly would not.”

“And you’d make us both Maitais.”

“I would sooner meet the Pope wearing clogs.” 

Shawn squints. “Are you wearing the clogs? Or is the Pope—”

“For Christ’s sake, Spencer, just leave it, and leave me, alone.”

Another silence. Shawn heaves out a sigh and puts his finger to his temple. 

Lassie has never hesitated to physically throw him out of places— crime scenes, interrogation rooms, suspect’s apartments. Even when he ran the risk of being penalized for manhandling the poor psychic, Lassiter would bar him from any and all information and interaction until Shawn left on his own. 

Lassiter would inevitably be more insistent if his claims were legitimate. 

“You don’t want me to leave,” Shawn says, letting his hand fall. “The spirits have given you away.”

The detective huffs. Shawn returns to the living room to retrieve his glass. Lassie refills it wordlessly. 

“We could watch a movie or something,” Shawn suggests lightly, his eyes trailing up to the detective’s forlorn features. “Order a pizza. A proper boy’s night in.”

Lassiter’s cold stare settles on his face. “Boy’s night in?”

“Yeah! We can do mani-pedis and make a pillow fort, also. If there’s time.”

There’s no answer. Shawn groans inwardly.

He actually has to talk to the detective. 

As in, a real, genuine heart-to-heart. 

Damn. 

So he tosses back his drink with a grimace and draws a deep, steadying breath. Lassie tops his glass up automatically, almost reflexively, and as Shawn takes him back to the sofa he wonders just how much Lassie’s been drinking recently. 

“Okay,” Shawn begins patiently. “So the divorce proceedings have officially begun after years of separation—”

Lassie whimpers. 

Carlton Lassiter actually whimpers. 

A chill runs down Shawn’s spine. He takes another deep breath and tries again. 

Surely he can be sensitive, right?

“Maybe I should start by saying I’m sorry,” Shawn says, treading lightly. “I’m sorry, and I know it must suck, and I’m here to lend an ear if you want one. No judgement.”

The detective shoots him a dirty look. Shawn sighs. 

“Listen, Carlton…”

They both cringe at his use of the detective’s first name, but neither mentions it. 

“Right now, I’m not the smartass psychic consultant who lives to give you hell, okay? Don’t think of me that way. Not tonight.”

“How can I not? Every single day you’re…”

He trails off. Shawn waits in silence. 

“I don’t know,” Lassie muses, his voice barely audible. “Maybe taking time off work was a mistake. At least seeing you there would give me something else to be upset about.”

Shawn cracks a smile. “Thanks, buddy. Means a lot.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t solve crimes, though. Regardless of how I feel about you.”

Shawn cocks an eyebrow. “Are you reassuring me that I’m good at what I do?”

Lassiter’s frown deepens. “I guess I am.”

Shawn is about to laugh and point out, of course he’s good at what he does. He’s Shawn Spencer, psychic consultant for the SBPD, running around doing, no, completing, detective work, when he’s neither a psychic nor a detective. 

Instead, he simply asks, “Why?”

“I know what it’s like to doubt your ability, your worth. My job is my life and I’ve second-guessed myself countless times. And you, Spencer, I know you can play the role of the cocky, self-assured hotshot. You play it well. But I’ve been a cop long enough to know that people like you are hiding something behind the rehearsed facade of it all. Usually deep-set insecurities.”

His words stun Shawn into a silence that can’t be so easily shaken off with his signature chuckle. Lassiter watches him intently, piercing blue eyes focused on his, searching for anything the psychic might give away. 

“I get it,” Shawn dismisses lightly. “You think my psychic abilities are fake, and I—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. I’ll pick apart your methods at work. Not here.”

Shawn frowns. “So you’re just trying to compliment me?”

Lassie nods pensively. “Yeah.”

“You know, I didn’t peg you as someone who looks for that kind of thing. People’s quirks, what they might be hiding. Well, beyond a motive for murder.”

“I’m human, Spencer. Despite the rumors. Despite my best efforts.”

Shawn casts a sideways glance at the detective, watching him skeptically. “Right.”

“It can be a good thing, you know?” Lassiter continues. “The human thing.”

“I’d agree with you, Lassie, but I’d much rather be a wombat.”

“That’s all my ex-wife wanted, for me to be, well, human,” Lassiter continues, as if Shawn hadn’t spoken. “She wanted empathy and warmth and all those other horrible things. Those things women seem to think us so capable of.”

Shawn scoffs. “Chicks, right?”

“My ex-wife was absolutely not a chick, Spencer, she was a beautiful woman. Classy, refined, complex. Like a fine wine.” Lassie clears his throat and looks away, fiddling with his glass. “I picked my job over her every time, even the times I believed I wasn’t even good at it, and look at me now. It bit me in the ass.”

Shawn nods along with his words, chewing his bottom lip. Typically he’d crack a joke, anything to lift them from this dismal mood, but of all the times it’s been horribly inappropriate to quip, it seems now like Shawn shouldn’t proceed. 

“That’s why you should know that, psychic or not, you’re a damn good detective. I can’t save you from making the mistakes I’ve made, but if you do, at least you know it wasn’t as horrible a sacrifice as mine.”

Shawn stands abruptly, running a hand through his hair to distract himself from Lassie’s unfamiliar sentimentality. It strikes a chord in him, one he absolutely does not like.

He’d spend all day reveling in flattery and admiration. Anyone’s and everyone’s. Even undeserved fawning is no big deal. 

But, somehow, Lassie’s sincerity hurts. 

“Bathroom?” he asks. 

Lassiter points noncommittally at the hallway by the door, watching the psychic with soft, glassy eyes. The alcohol has started to take effect on both of them, and now that Shawn has gotten up the sudden head rush is disorienting. 

He avoids Lassie’s gaze as he passes him on the way to the bathroom, but he knows it follows him all the way there. 

He scrubs his face in the sink, hoping the cold water will sober him up, but when he turns off the faucet and looks in the mirror the room is still pulsating, his cheeks flushed, his eyes misty. 

There’s a reason Shawn doesn’t drink often. He’s impulsive enough without alcohol. Not only this, his filter disappears and his emotions run rampant, and for someone with an image to keep up, those things can be destructive. 

Especially now, mixed with this godforsaken vulnerability.

Shawn takes a deep breath and leaves the bathroom.


	4. The Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my favorite thing in the world. Just so you know :)

He scrubs his face in the sink, hoping the cold water will sober him up, but when he turns off the faucet and looks in the mirror the room is still pulsating, his cheeks flushed, his eyes misty. 

There’s a reason Shawn doesn’t drink often. He’s impulsive enough without alcohol. Not only this, his filter disappears and his emotions run rampant, and for someone with an image to keep up, those things can be destructive. 

Lassiter’s in the kitchen again, refilling his glass. Shawn strips his jacket off and lays it across the counter, scanning the kitchen to avoid Lassiter’s inquisitive stare. It’s not quite as pristine as he remembers— there’s a small collection of crumpled papers and a broken pen, a snazzy gold gift box that evidently housed these crystal glasses they’re using tonight, a decorative velvet bag with golden lettering. Bowmore. 

Even Shawn knows it’s expensive. 

“Why tonight?” he asks, nodding at the bottle. “Seems like a special occasion liquor, doesn’t it?”

“It almost was,” the detective mutters, entranced in his whiskey. 

Shawn nods absently, retrieving his glass from the living room so Lassie can top him up. 

Poor Lassie. He’d really been expecting a reconciliation. The anticipation of it, after so many years of separation. It must have hit him hard. 

Then, it clicks. The crystal. The high-end liquor. The notes. 

A special occasion. 

Shawn thinks he might be sick. 

“You were going to kill yourself,” he says, almost accusingly. 

Lassie averts his eyes, though he says nothing. Shawn gapes at him, sputtering, distraught. Nausea spikes. He feels the need to grab Lassiter and cling, like maybe this reality is more of a sick joke and less of an ugly truth if they just hug it out. 

“Were you?”

Silence. 

Shawn slams his fist against the counter. “Answer me, Carlton!”

“How the hell is it any of your business?” Lassiter snaps. 

“It’s not like we’re talking about your tax returns, man, we’re talking about ending your life.” Shawn tries to steady himself and fails, his knuckles paling, his fingernails digging into the sweaty flesh of his palm. “How could you do that? Why would you do that?”

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Just answer the fucking question.”

Lassie squints. Had he ever heard Spencer curse like that before, or use that tone of voice?

Or for that matter, has he ever really seen him angry before? His face is flushed, his eyebrows knit, his jaw clenched. The hollows of his cheeks are prominent, as is the vein in his forehead. 

All for Carlton‘s sake. 

“I don’t know what to tell you. My life is a disaster.” The detective pauses, acknowledging the pile of notes on the opposite counter before finally settling his eyes on the psychic once more. “I’m alone.”

“Alone?”

“I’m alone, Spencer, just take a look around. Don’t try to convince me otherwise. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

Shawn heaves out a tense breath and yanks the first two buttons of his shirt open. Lassie’s place hadn’t been this hot when they’d first arrived, had it?

“Lassie,” he says, his voice strained. “What about your mom? Jules? The chief? Or any of us at the station?”

“Let’s not pretend any of them give a rat’s ass about me, okay? All they—”

“Well, what about me, then, hm?”

A chuckle escapes the detective, low and dark and cynical. “What about you, Spencer?”

“I give a rat's ass, okay? Obviously. I dragged Gus here, just to make sure you were okay. And thank god I did, because you were here…” Shawn gestures vaguely, “plotting.”

Lassiter snorts. “Good one.”

Shawn squeezes his eyes shut, wondering, if he had been much later, what kind of horror he would have walked in on. Of all the tragic things Shawn’s had to see, he’s not sure he could so easily recover from that one. 

It would have been utterly counterintuitive, finding Lassie dead. 

Lassie doesn’t die. 

The man might as well be made out of lead. 

He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, his focus dulled beneath his intoxication, and takes several dizzy strides toward the notes, gauging the detective's reaction from his peripherals. Lassiter stiffens and takes half a step forward, as if to chase Spencer off, but he sags and stops and lets him proceed. The psychic picks one up and begins to read it, failing to decipher the most of the terrible handwriting between the violent scribbling. 

Lassie simply watches him, liquor in hand. 

Shawn identifies a few words among the mess — sorry, end, thank you— and drops the note back to the counter. He opens a few more, and though they’re mostly illegible, he identifies several different names scratched across the top of each note: a few for Jules, a few for the chief, a few for his mother. All crumpled. All miserable. They make Shawn’s guts twist, his face burn. 

“Look, Lassie,” Shawn begins softly, inching distrustfully away from the pile of papers as if they might come alive and gobble him up. “I get it, alright? I get the whole loneliness thing. I have to lie to the people who mean the most to me. I know the game. I’d probably be where you are if it weren’t for Gus.”

Lassie’s eyes glaze over. “Victoria was my Gus.”

Shawn slumps against the table, hesitating, struggling to digest that reality. “Oh. I see.”

More silence. Shawn hates it but he can’t seem to think of anything to adequately fill the space between them. 

It does, however, seem to be shrinking by the minute. 

Finally, Shawn mutters, “I can't imagine losing…”

“Yeah.” Lassie shuffles uncomfortably. “Thanks, Spencer. Shawn.”

Shawn turns toward the notes once more. The notepad, now blank, sits face up on the counter, with shards of broken plastic from the mutilated pen scattered on top. A single page is folded over the binding, uncreased. The indents in the back of this page indicate another note, only not torn and discarded. He reaches for it. 

In an instant, Lassiter appears before him, his long fingers clamped around Shawn’s wrist. He recoils at the sudden contact, at the detective’s frigid skin, at the sharp disapproval in his eyes. 

Shawn takes a stab in the dark. 

“Is that one for me?” he asks, repressing a grimace. 

“Why the hell would I write you one, of all people?”

“Maybe to tell me that, even though you never believed I was psychic, that I was valuable to the department regardless?” Shawn says. He bites back an inexplicable sob that creeps up his throat. 

Drinking was definitely a bad idea.

Lassie’s hand tightens around his arm. “Just don’t, alright? I was in a weird headspace when I wrote that, when I thought I wouldn’t have to see you after you read it.”

“That means it’s the most honest you’ll ever be with me, right?” Shawn pauses, chewing his bottom lip in another pathetic attempt to bring himself back from the brink of spilling his guts, not unlike Lassie’s episode at Tom Blair’s. Not that it wouldn’t be perfectly deserved. “We’re already here, Carlton. We’ve crossed that boundary ten times over just in the last hour. What is there to lose, our lifelong friendship?”

Lassiter’s nostrils flare. “How about our mutual respect?”

“My respect for you is based on your ability to help people,” Shawn says. “I presume it goes both ways.”

“Fine, then. How about our mutual indifference?”

“I am not indifferent toward you. Isn’t that obvious?” His voice wavers a bit, making him sound more unbalanced than he feels. “Isn’t it, Lassie? Isn’t it?”

Actually, he has no idea how he feels. Upset, probably. Very upset. 

He’s dizzy. He realizes he can smell the liquor on Lassiter. How long have they been standing so close?

Lassiter’s face softens suddenly, and his grip on Shawn’s arm loosens and drops away. Shawn blinks, and his eyes burn, and he wonders exactly what it was that made him tear up.

“Okay,” Lassiter relents. “Fine.”

Shawn reads the note. 

Spencer,

Please keep up the good work. 

The world needs more people like you. 

Look out for O’Hara in my absence. Always have her back. 

Thanks for your help. 

Sincerely,  
Carlton Lassiter 

A dark splotch appears on the page. Then another. 

Shawn tosses the pad away and drags his sleeves across his eyes. 

“Spencer,” Lassiter begins. 

“Stop. Just give me a second.”

“No, really, I didn’t mean—”

“What the hell, Lassie?” Shawn snaps at him, jabbing a finger at the note. “What kind of bullshit was that?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re supposed to be stronger than me. Detective.” Shawn scoffs at the title. “And this is what you do? Write me some bullshit last goodbye, or whatever the hell that was.”

Lassiter watches him in dazed silence, setting his glass down so delicately that it barely makes a sound, so as not to further upset the psychic. 

“Nothing fazes you, Lassiter. You’ve faced off with serial killers, you’ve tackled murders, you’ve looked down the barrel of a gun and not even batted an eye.” Shawn stops to catch his breath, lost somewhere in the rant. “If you can’t do it, how am I supposed to do it?”

“Are you really trying to guilt trip me for this? Seriously, Spencer?”

Shawn snatches the note and waves it furiously in Lassiter’s face. “What the fuck do you call this if not a guilt trip? ‘In your absence’? ‘Our mutual indifference’?” He flings the pad against the cupboard, expecting some relief or satisfaction from it but finding none. “What the fuck, Carlton.”

Lassiter flinches. “Jesus Christ.” 

Shawn shakes his head, fuming, barely aware of his surroundings. The room is spinning, the earth quaking beneath his feet. His heartbeat feels more like a pummeling rather than a thumping. Every thought vibrates, pounding against his skull. No matter how he tries, he just can’t seem to make sense of it all. 

Where the hell is Gus?

“Move,” Shawn growls, shoving Lassiter aside. “I’m out of here.”

Lassiter catches him by the shoulders and yanks him into a hug, wrapping both arms around Shawn’s broad back, resting his cheek against soft, fragrant hair. They sway together, mostly for their unreliable balance. A gust of wind could topple them, but they’d topple together. 

Shawn begins to decompress almost instantly. 

In the clarity he begins to realize how much he’s going to hate himself tomorrow. Will he remember his behavior tonight? And if he does, how is he going to avoid the earth-shattering realization that he cares, and cares deeply, for the grumpy detective?

Shawn huffs and nestles his face into Lassiter’s shoulder. 

He’d almost lost him, hadn’t he? And Shawn’s ashamed of worrying about him?

“I’m sorry,” Shawn murmurs. 

“Me, too.”

“Please don’t do it,” the psychic continues. “I’ll do what I can, we can find help, we’ll go—”

Lassiter kisses him. It startles them both, but regardless they linger together. It’s reassuring for a minute, a reminder that both of them still exist, but eventually Shawn snaps out of the haze and pushes the detective away.


	5. Tell No One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my favorite thing in the world. Just so you know :)

What happened?

They say nothing for several seconds. 

Finally, Lassiter clears his throat and picks up his glass. “Sorry.”

Shawn takes his jacket and makes a beeline for the front door. Lassie doesn’t stop him. He only sighs despondently and returns to the couch, sitting in his usual spot and crossing his legs, focusing on anything but the sound of Shawn leaving. 

Shawn hesitates at the threshold. He rests his head against the jamb, trying to organize his thoughts, shutting his eyes against the offensive glare of the porch light. 

Had he…enjoyed that?

With Carlton Lassiter, of all people?

He shudders. The memory returns, in vivid clarity. The chills, followed by a sharp spike of heat, the pleasure of it, all made more intense by the fug of misery around them. 

Shawn deserves it, doesn’t he? Sure as hell Lassiter deserves it. A night of recklessness after which they’d both wake up, unlike Lassie’s previous plan. No one has to know the details. 

Shawn almost laughs at himself. Trading suicide for sex seems facetious even by his skewed standards. Desperate times and all that. 

So, he marches back into Lassie’s living room and throws his jacket across the coffee table 

“Please.” Lassie wipes his hand down his face. “Spare me the lecture. I already said I was sorry.”

Shawn just stares at him. 

Lassie rolls his eyes. “Christ, Spencer, if you’re going to hit me just do it already.”

“Not hit you,” he says. “Something else. Entirely.”

A beat of tension passes. Lassiter lowers his drink to the sleek slate coaster on the end table. 

“We tell no one,” he says. 

“No one,” Shawn echoes. 

Shawn lowers his knee to the cushion between Lassiter’s thighs and braces his hands against the back of the couch, peering down at the softened detective through bloodshot eyes. The tension is suffocating. They each nod once as an affirmation, allowing an extra second to steady their breath and find their bearings in the spinning room. 

This time their kiss is not only expected but eagerly anticipated. It’s so unbelievably supple that they instantly forget their surroundings, their complicated history, the ugliness of the last hour or so. 

Lassie’s dizzied by it. This can’t be the same Shawn Spencer he dragged into that interrogation room all those years ago, can it? Here, now, so thoroughly gentle, radiating warmth and sex. This can’t be him. 

Shawn’s thoughts parallel the detective's. What exactly was the progression of the night that led to the consumption of such forbidden fruit? What had he said or done that opened this locked door?

He sighs when Lassiter’s fingers find the hem of his shirt, gripping the fabric until his knuckles turn white. Shawn boldly undoes two more buttons, and in an instant Lassiter’s hands are on his chest, cool palms running over Shawn’s burning skin. He deftly slips the remaining buttons free and lets his shirt fall open in front. Lassie sheds it hurriedly, just about ripping the thing off, and splays back against the cushions to allow Shawn to return the favor. The kiss had left them breathless, both their chests heaving in sync, their eyes wide with a wild, untamable excitement. 

Lassie sits up, reaching up Shawn’s back to hold him in place, and dives toward his throat, sucking the hot flesh of his neck until the psychic is bucking and whining and pleading. He takes Lassie by the shoulders and pulls him off. The throbbing tells him there’s definitely a hickey there now, and the thought of it makes him want ten more. 

“You look great,” Shawn breathes, popping the button on his fly. 

“You do, too.”

Despite everything, Lassie is just as fit as Shawn had imagined. Toned, not quite beefy, well groomed but not hairless. 

He hadn’t thought much about what makes men attractive, but now he knows. All of it is on display right before his eyes. Not only that, it’s his to enjoy for the night.


	6. Debauchery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my favorite thing in the world. Just so you know :)

Shawn kisses him again, just because he can, and god, is it gratifying. He even dares to wonder why they hadn’t done this before. 

Lassie pushes Shawn’s pants off his hips, revealing the elastic of his boxers, and with a slight, shuffling adjustment his jeans find their way to the floor. The psychic exhales the sudden rush of excitement he feels as he bends to run his tongue down the detective’s neck, his chest, sucking and biting voraciously on his pale skin. A barely-suppressed growl rumbles from Lassie’s throat as his hips bow outward, colliding with Shawn’s. 

“Off,” he breathes, grabbing at Lassiter’s waistline. Lassiter shifts, and then his pants join Shawn’s on the floor. 

“God, Shawn, just— is this real, Shawn? Are we doing this?”

Shawn leans away, dazed, gripping Lassie’s shoulders for stability. “I guess we are.”

“I need to know,” Lassie touches Shawn’s cheeks, his lips, his chin, feeling stubble beneath his fingertips, prodding him as though the detective expects the face before him to morph into someone else’s, someone more probable. “Why were you so angry?”

Shawn tenses at his own complete lack of explanation. 

Gus would know the answer. Is that what he meant when he said this would be good for Shawn? Force him to analyze his own intrusive feelings? He’s spent his entire life honing the skill of willful ignorance to these things, of evading and avoiding all the silly nonsense his brain tickles itself with. 

He lowers his eyes to Lassiter’s, blurry and vividly blue, awaiting his answer. 

“I think you know why, Lassie.”

“We were barely cordial, Spencer, and now—”

“I care about you, Carlton.”

Shawn wants to laugh at the way he’d blurted that, but it would be just another inappropriate slip on top of a night full of absurdity.

Lassiter frowns. “How drunk are you, Shawn?”

Shawn scoffs. “I meant it when I said it, and you’re not going to make me say it again.” 

“Why tonight?” Lassiter continues. “What brought you here tonight?”

“I just felt like…” Shawn takes a breath, rubs his eyes, centers himself, amid the bizarre feeling of sitting perched on the detective’s lap in nothing but boxers. “I felt like something was wrong, like you might have needed me.”

Lassiter grimaces at the premise of needing Spencer.

The scowl inexplicably breaks when he realizes, he had needed him, hadn’t he? In a bizarre and monumentally fucked up way?

The silence goes on so long that Shawn considers making another attempt to leave. He could scoop up his clothes and lie about the hickey and pretend none of this had happened, especially now that Lassie’s backpedaling from their misadventure into debauchery together. Debauchery that has left them both with twitching erections. Shawn’s sober brain will be utterly vicious tomorrow, he can already tell. 

Just as he begins to dismount, Lassie wraps his arms around the small of his back and nuzzles his nose into Shawn’s neck, only inches below the fresh hickey, pressing their bare chests flush with one another. It’s deeply comforting, tonight’s redeeming moment. It consoles both, reaffirms their mutual decision to allow the night to take them where it will, even if it forever changes their relationship. 

Emboldened by the bliss and alcohol, Lassie slips his hand down the front of Spencer’s boxers. He bucks forward in response, rutting into the detective’s lithe hand and groaning something unintelligible. Lassiter grins against Shawn’s neck, high on his cologne or shampoo or pheromones or whatever it is that makes him smell so intoxicating. 

Shawn grits his teeth against the shuddering pleasure that rockets through his body. Insecurity takes over briefly— does he know Lassiter well enough to drop his walls, to allow him to freely roam his body? 

As Lassie pulses faster, pulling Shawn’s head down to watch his facial expressions, the psychic realizes two things: not only has he completely let his guard down, he’s convinced he can’t blame the alcohol. 

It’s just him and Lassie, grinding against each other, eyes focused but wild. 

Shawn balances himself against Lassie’s shoulder, holding on for dear life as he nearly buckles from the desperate want that numbs him from the neck up. With his free hand he yanks Lassie’s underwear down and grips him, pulling at a sporadic, unbalanced rhythm that unravels the detective into a mess of pleading moans. 

It’s exhilarating. Shawn, as the only witness to this moment, feels like he’s savvy to one of the world’s best kept secrets. Lassiter’s hand tightens around Shawn’s length, pumping him faster, channeling his own pleasure into Shawn’s body. 

The psychic’s vision blurs, thrusting his hips against Carlton’s hand, cursing and grunting, rutting down against the detective’s lap to grind their erections together. 

Shawn has been with countless women, yet he can’t remember any situation as erotic as this one. He can’t seem to look away, he can’t seem to still his hips, it’s all dizzying and overwhelming and deeply gratifying. Shawn smashes his mouth feverishly against Carlton’s, biting at his lips, gripping his hair with his free hand. Lassiter whines softly, allowing Shawn to do with him as he likes. His misery feels distant in the fog of sex, and at this point the detective would likely trust him with anything so long as he continues to grant this disorienting pleasure. 

“Spencer,” Lassie chokes out, his focus blurring, his fist tightening in Shawn’s hair. His pelvis twitches up, bumping against the psychic’s, dragging him closer. 

“Go,” Shawn demands, panting. “Do it.”

When Lassie comes, he comes hard, shooting across his own heaving chest and Spencer’s, leaving stripes of warmth across their stomachs. It brings a euphoria Lassie hasn’t felt in years. Is it the alcohol? The psychic’s presence? The sensation of being forcibly dragged back from the brink and thrust into blinding ecstasy?

“Good god, Lassie,” Shawn breathes, falling still on the detective's lap. “That was—“

“Shut up, Spencer,” Lassie growls, shoving Shawn off his lap and onto the sofa, his back against the seat cushions, his arms splayed on either side. He’s utterly breathless, his lips parted, watching the detective through heavy, lidded eyes. 

What a sight that had been. Why again don’t they do this every week?

Lassie mounts him, inserting his hips between Shawn’s thighs to pin them open, and grips his length once more. Shawn relents to his will, tossing his head back against the cushions so Lassie can attack his throat once more, sucking as though his life depended on it. 

It’s rough and fast and it releases all of Lassiter’s pent up frustration. Shawn absorbs it effortlessly, throwing his hips against Lassie’s, writhing in time to his rhythmic pulsing and begging for more. 

A whimper escapes the psychic. Lassiter grits his teeth and tightens his hold, moving them together, their pelvises grinding fluidly. Shawn comes with a hitch, arching his hips as he does, slinging hot strings across his torso. He curses, twitching, grabbing at the couch cushions for stability as he tries to reorient. 

The room is spinning. Lassie sits back, flopping into his seat, thoroughly dizzy and equally satisfied. Both men are a sticky, heaving mess, their chests glistening, dripping down toward their waistline. 

Shawn props his head up on his arm to gauge Lassie’s reaction, breathing in the scent of sex and sweat, his vision still blurry and twinged blue. 

Several minutes pass before either has recovered enough to speak. 

“Are you expecting me to say something?” Lassiter asks, noting Shawn’s prolonged eye contact. 

“Maybe a ‘good work, Spencer’ or something along those lines.”

Lassie cracks a smile. “Yeah, okay. Good work.”

“I can’t say I ever expected to fool around with Carlton Lassiter, Head Detective for the SBPD.”

“Likewise, Spencer.”

“Now I’m wearing your DNA.”

Another half smile. Shawn shuffles partway into Lassie’s lap, gazing up at him with soft, drunken eyes. 

“Aren’t you going to threaten me?” he continues. 

“Threaten you?”

“If anyone at the station finds out. What’s my deterrent?”

“I guess nothing.” Lassie meets his gaze and dares an affectionate pat on the head. “Of everything that could have happened tonight, I’m glad it was this.”

“You know what, Lassiekins? Me, too.” Shawn takes his hand and toys with his long fingers. “Should I pencil you in again for next week?”

“We can’t make this a habit, Spencer.”

“Why not?” Shawn smirks. “I’m already covered in your little Lassies.”

“You’re a child.”

Several minutes slip by in silence. Lassie fiddles with his glass, chewing his lip, watching the wind rustle the trees out back. Shawn cracks each of Lassie’s knuckles absently, entranced in the sound and the feel of his skin. The alcohol is still present in their bodies, though Shawn seems to be the only one bold enough to be outright with his desires. 

Shawn cranes his neck to watch Lassie's stoic face. Lassie keeps his eyes averted. 

“Do we cuddle?”

No reply. 

“Lassiekins?”

Lassie’s expression doesn’t change. “You can stay there.”

Lassiter’s hand leaves his drink and comes to rest on top of Shawn’s head, mingling with his soft brown hair, brushing it back from his face. It’s far more tender than anything Shawn had expected from him, but it’s nice regardless. 

They exchange shy, almost reluctant smiles, but despite themselves they’re comfortable. 

The psychic sleeps with his head in the detective’s lap.


	7. Homoerotic Spa Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my favorite thing in the world. Just so you know :)

Shawn first awakes when Lassie leaves the sofa. It agitates the psychic’s throbbing headache, radiating enough pain to knock him out once more. The second time is to Lassie’s uncharacteristically gentle prodding, though Shawn is far too disoriented to question it. 

“Get up. I made coffee. And your phone’s been ringing incessantly.”

Shawn sits up, dragging his gelatinous heap of a body on top of itself until it resembles a person, and fishes his buzzing phone out of his pocket. 

Gus. Of course. 

He answers with the best impression of chipper sobriety he can muster. 

“You never came home,” Gus says, forgoing the greeting altogether. 

Shawn doesn’t confirm nor deny this, though he’s sure this incriminates him more. 

“You stayed the night at Lassiter’s?”

“Yeah, things got a little…unhinged.”

Lassie shoots him a vaguely threatening glare from the kitchen, cocking one dark eyebrow inquisitively. 

There’s a long pause. Shawn’s head throbs under Lassie’s gaze, accompanied by Gus’s distrustful silence. 

“How much did you drink?”

“Drink?”

“You’re hungover, Shawn. I can hear it in your voice.”

“What are you talking about? If my throat’s a little scratchy is because a late night showing of Grease came on and you know I make a damn good Sandy.” 

“Whatever happened, you can spare the details. Juliet called about a case, I’ll tell her we’ll sit this one out.”

“I’ll be right back in the game ASAP, buddy,” Shawn promises. 

“Whatever you say,” Gus says, and hangs up. 

Lassie is still watching him from the kitchen. Wordlessly, painfully, Shawn joins him, relishing the smell of hot coffee. It promises some relief from this horrendous hangover and this sluggish exhaustion, so much so that Shawn heaves out a relishing sigh. 

Then, rather abruptly, he realizes that he’s shirtless, covered in dry semen from various sources, standing barefoot in the head detective’s kitchen. If all this weren’t bad enough, they’re both far too sober to play it off as well as they had the night before. 

They both seem to register Shawn’s sparse clothing simultaneously. Wordlessly, Lassiter passes him a rag and nods toward the kitchen sink. Shawn takes the hint and goes to clean off while Lassie serves two steaming mugs of coffee. 

Shawn scrubs his chest and stomach idly, scanning the nearby counter as more and more details from the night prior return to him. The notes are gone, and the destroyed pen has been carefully cleaned up and discarded. He turns, glancing at Lassiter, his gaze skimming the living room and kitchen table. The liquor and glasses are nowhere in sight. The eggplant has disappeared from its place on the floor where Shawn had last seen it, after failing to dodge it in projectile form. 

“What did Guster want?”

“Make sure I was okay.”

“That’s nice.” Lassie clears his throat. “So, about last night—”

“We don’t have to talk about it. Seriously. I already know everything you’re going to say.”

Shawn squints at his own lie. 

Lassie had surprised him on countless occasions in the past twelve hours. The psychic’s perception of him has been utterly shucked and peeled and then lightly sautéed, probably. Served with a delicious cream sauce, like the one he’d had at that Greek restaurant that one time.

Shawn sighs and dismounts the sudden tangent. What is he avoiding, and how far into his mind is he willing to go to avoid it?

Lassie’s gaze is unwavering. He sets two filled mugs on the table and sits, rather unceremoniously, and contemplates the sugar packets in a nearby dish. 

“There’s no working together after this, unless we make some things clear.”

Shawn pauses. “Working?”

“I’m going back tomorrow.” Lassie fingers one sugar packet, then two, but drops them after not much thought. “It would have been today, but I’m still so screwed from last night.”

“That’s why you got up at such an ungodly hour.”

“Which you know, because we shared—” Lassie clears his throat— “rather close quarters last night.”

“Why force it, Lassie? Clearly neither of us want to—”

“Listen, Spencer, I am not good at this and we both are well aware of that, but I’ve learned a very harsh lesson recently that, maybe, I should be trying to better myself.”

Shawn grimaces. “God, you’re using me as target practice for your, what, emotional intelligence?”

“What were you honestly expecting? That we could go on exactly like before without so much as a simple conversation?”

“I was hoping, yeah.”

Lassie’s jaw sets, the hollows of his cheeks deepening. “Sit down.”

Shawn drops the rag and raises his hands, well aware that Lassie’s gun collection likely won’t mix well with his frustration. “Fine. Let me at least put on my pants.”

Shawn takes his time with this task, searching the living room for evidence of any other kind of nefarious activity that might have slipped his drunken mind. He had gone to sleep, right, as opposed to blacking out?

How can he be sure? To snuggle up to Lassie is to cross a threshold far beyond last night’s intoxicated state. The dizzy prime-time porno seems more justifiable than the cuddling, and he’s thankful he can at least try to blame the alcohol. 

Or was it, maybe, vulnerability? Shawn shudders and drags his heels back to the kitchen table. 

Both coffees are black, which is odd for Lassie. Shawn doesn’t mention it. 

“I’m sorry if my behavior was less than dignified last night.” Another clearing of the throat, a brush of the hand through dark, rustled hair. “I was in a bad place.”

Shawn bites back the urge to make a joke (“not as bad as the Arby’s I hit the other day. That place was unsalvageable.”) and simply nods instead. 

“I know,” the psychic says solemnly. “Uh, sorry.”

“I’m grateful you and Guster showed up.” Yet another clearing of the throat. “I’m especially grateful that you stayed.”

“No problem, buddy. Good talk,” Shawn says, and he’s about to stand and make an ample getaway when Lassie holds his hand out to stop him. 

“There was clearly some sexual tension that was left unresolved. Otherwise I don’t think we would have conducted ourselves as we did.”

Shawn recoils. “Jeez, Lassie, spare the soap opera recap. We were drunk, we were frustrated, we were lonely. You’re overanalyzing, just like I knew you would.”

“Shawn,” Lassie says patiently, “I’m not exactly thrilled to bring this into the open, either, but it has to be done. Take my word for it, something left unsaid is always the opening act to the shitshow.”

Then, the detective takes a long drink from his mug. Shawn watches, his eyebrows furrowed, unable to wipe away the grimace that stains his features. 

Lassie doesn’t say anything. 

“Fine,” Shawn relents. “Some, uh, some unresolved sexual tension. Now resolved.”

What did he really have to lose? Of all of last night’s fuzziest moments, their tryst was crystal clear. They were borderline ravenous, grinding and groaning and shamelessly demanding all their needs be met. They’d known whose body it was pressed to theirs. They knew when they woke up this morning whose cum and sweat they’d slept in. 

Shawn’s grimace deepens at the thought. 

“We have to work together,” Lassie says finally, taking another long draw of coffee. “We have to maintain professionalism and our usual, mutual show of disdain. I would prefer that those at the station were not made aware of this encounter.”

Another joke bubbles up (“why Carlton, cause I’m your ugliest conquest? Cause you’re ashamed? Cause the others will be spitefully jealous?”) but he forces it down. 

“Deal,” Shawn agrees. 

“But, I considered your offer…”

“Whoa. What offer?”

Lassie’s face tightens. Shawn’s recollection is instant. 

“Offers I make drunk are null and void as soon as I’m sober,” Shawn says quickly. 

“Yeah. That’s fine.” Lassie’s eyes flick up to the ceiling to avoid his. “But I won’t shut the door like I did last night. In moderation, this could be good. Couldn’t it?”

“This?” Shawn echoes. “You mean, getting smashed, fighting, and fucking, in that order?”

Lassie rolls his eyes, though still pointedly avoiding Shawn’s stare. “If you won’t admit it, I will. I feel better. Okay? Much, much better. This was a fantastic stress reliever.”

They fall silent at Lassie's confession. It was sincere, it was square, completely bereft of funny business or sarcasm. Shawn’s idiocy had dragged the detective partway out of the darkness and brought some of his own feelings to light in the process. 

Maybe Gus was right. Maybe this had been good for him. 

“Like a homoerotic spa day,” Shawn agrees finally, his hesitation easing a bit. “So, what, you want to be lovers in the nighttime?”

Lassie’s face scrunches. “Don’t say it like that. How about acquaintances with benefits?”

Shawn huffs. “Really Lassie? Acquaintances? After I poured my whole heart out to you?”

A pause. Shawn swallows. 

“I cried over you, man. I can’t take that back.”

Lassie’s stern expression melts. He drops his head against his palms, rubbing his eyes, finding solace in the twinkles behind his eyelids. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be a guilt trip, Shawn.”

Another bit of Shawn’s memory clicks back into place. That had been a topic of conversation, hadn’t it?

The fucker. He’d told him to look after Juliet, ‘in his absence’, hadn’t he?

Shawn wants to say so much that it clogs his throat and effectively silences him. He wants to yell, he wants to cry, he’s even tempted to laugh, just to dislodge this unbearable lump. Lassie’s ice blue eyes pierce his face, yet he can’t seem to excuse himself nor his drunken accusation.

“Frankly, I’m embarrassed you came across my notes,” Lassiter continues, reaching into his pocket, “but the rest are here, if you're curious.”

“Knock it off, Lassie.”

The detective slaps down a stack of small envelopes, the size of a notecard, with various names written on each. Shawn instinctively swipes them onto the floor, tensing at the sight of them, neatly sealed, labeled, uncreased. This hadn’t been a rash decision at all, and a decision he certainly would have acted on without Shawn and Gus's unannounced arrival. 

Shawn feels vehemently ill. He chugs half his coffee to steady the uneasiness. 

“Get help,” Shawn hisses, his mouth burning. “Check yourself into a fucking asylum if necessary. I am not the one to lean on, Carlton, and I’ve damn well proved that.”

“Relax. Jesus. I’m not making you responsible for keeping me on suicide watch. If I end it, that’s on me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not trying to make my prospective death your fault, okay?” Lassiter takes a deep breath, thumbing the handle of his coffee mug for a distraction. “But as of right now, you are the reason I’m still breathing.”

Shawn hates that fact almost as much as he’s relieved by it. 

Goddamn, Lassie. 

“We don’t have to discuss last night, any part of it, ever again.” Lassie slides two sugar packets in Shawn’s direction, holding his gaze. “I just don’t want you to forget that it happened.”

“And just when I was starting to think I knew too much,” Shawn mutters, ripping open the sugars and dumping them ungracefully into his coffee. “Fine. We’ve arrived. Here, in uncharted territory, where we’re doomed to carry intimate knowledge of one another until we die. What’s next?”

Lassie squints pensively. “Breakfast?”

“Great idea,” Shawn says, swirling his mug. “There’s this awesome pancake place, we could order in and—”

Lassiter’s cell phone rings, loud and jarring, startling them both. After a beat of recovery, he answers it in his most professional tone. 

“Lassiter,” he says. A pause. “O’Hara?”

Shawn snatches Lassie's arm and puts Jules on speakerphone. Before he can greet her, she begins to speak. 

“How you doing, partner?” she asks. 

But the question doesn’t sound innocent. She suspects something, Shawn knows it. They both hear the forced nonchalance in her tone. 

“Fine, the same as I was an hour ago when we last spoke. And you?”

“Great,” she says. “I just got off the phone with Gus, actually.”

Lassie shoots Shawn a skeptical glance. “Oh?”

“He turned down a case because, according to him, Shawn’s a little hungover.”

Lassie’s eyes squeeze shut. He mouths a short string of curse words, tilting his face toward the ceiling. 

Juliet continues. 

“I know neither you nor Shawn are heavy drinkers, Carlton, and I just thought it was a bit strange for you two to be hungover the very same morning.”

“O’Hara—”

“And, also according to Gus, he hadn’t been able to get ahold of Shawn all morning, and he hadn’t heard from him since eight last night. He said something about Shawn missing a Fast and Furious marathon?”

Lassie’s mouth pinches into a disdainful line. 

“Shawn mentioned to me yesterday that his apartment complex was being fumigated and that he would be crashing with Gus. I figured Shawn might have slept at the Psych office, but evidently Gus was alone when I called the landline.”

Shawn opens his mouth to object, but Lassiter silences him with a single sharp gesture. 

“Anyway, Gus called me back not too long ago to turn down the case, like I said,” she says. “He told me Shawn was hungover and had slept through his calls. And, it’s not even nine in the morning, Carlton, and everyone knows Shawn doesn’t wake up before eleven unless it’s for a case or a fried junk food outing with Gus. Especially if he’s hungover. So I highly doubt he would be out and about at this hour.”

Shawn and Lassie grimace simultaneously, letting their heads loll forward. 

Gus is certainly going to get an earful when they next see each other. 

“Someone must have woken him up, cause clearly a ringing cell phone wasn’t doing the trick.” Juliet pauses to take a breath, conspicuously smug and self-satisfied. “And if it weren’t for the two of you being hungover the same morning, I might have thought he’d woken up in some girl’s bed, but you gave yourself away.”

“O’Hara, I—”

“You two had a slumber party!”

Shawn flops onto the table at Juliet’s conclusion, uncharacteristically innocent in nature. Lassie relaxes after him, watching the psychic’s face with a tentative unfurling. 

“I’m so glad you guys are getting along,” Juliet chirps gleefully. Shawn can practically hear her toothy grin, electric and vibrant even though the phone. “And frankly, Carlton, I’ve been worried sick about you recently. You’ve been MIA for so long, I never would have expected you and Shawn of all people—”

She stops. Shawn’s heart plummets into his stomach. 

Then, the dreaded question. 

“Did anything else happen?”

Shawn knows Lassie doesn’t lie well and bites his lip in anticipation of the poorly executed half truth that’s bound to happen. To his surprise, however, Lassie doesn’t react whatsoever. Straight-faced and unbothered, he simply says, “Let’s talk tomorrow,” and hangs up. 

“What the hell, dude?” Shawn asks, gaping. “How guilty do you want to make us look?”

“Juliet is an exception and you know it,” the detective returns, stonelike. 

“You’re going to tell her?”

“Please. She knows.” Lassie shuffles, shoving his phone into the pocket of his slacks and reclining against the kitchen chair. “She’s Santa Barbara’s finest for a reason. There was no hiding it.”

Shawn huffs and finishes off his coffee. “I knew getting tangled up with cops was a bad move.” 

“Not much worse than a psychic.” Lassie’s eyes dart abruptly away. “Or whatever the hell you are.”

Shawn cocks an eyebrow inquisitively, occupying his mouth with his empty coffee cup to silence himself. 

Lassie relents under the pressure of the quiet. 

“Wasn’t it your sixth sense or whatever that brought you here?”

Shawn doesn’t answer immediately. His father raised him on logic, honed his sensibilities, taught him to look at the evidence and draw a rational conclusion. In Shawn’s mind, that’s the only way to go about a case, or anything, really, save for his theatrical silliness. Last night goes against his code, endowed upon him by many years of Scooby Doo, that psychics aren’t real and all monsters are human. 

Yet something led him, no, forced him to Lassie’s. More than a hunch. More than concern. Even some nagging worry he could ignore. Last night had been different in every way, nothing logical about it. It poked a huge hole in his philosophy, and for Lassie of all people. 

“My psychic channel can tune to certain people,” Shawn finally says, for the first time feeling like he’s mostly telling the truth. “Especially people in need.”

The smallest of scowls spreads across Lassie’s strong Irish features, but it relaxes after a moment to a calm neutrality.

When he speaks, his tone is gentle. “Did you say something about pancakes?”

Something about Lassie’s voice brings a mist across Shawn’s eyes. When he finds the courage to meet the sky blue gaze that awaits him, he cracks the smallest smile. Surprisingly, Lassie returns it fluidly, and they simply allow the moment to pass with unabashed appreciation. 

For the first time in a long time, Carlton Lassiter feels warm, sitting opposite this psychic. It’s effortless. Liberating. He thinks he could do this every day, hash out his ugliest inhibitions over coffee and share something sweet afterward. 

None of that leaves his mind, amid their shared smile. 

Instead he says, “Thank you, Shawn.”

It’s effortless, and so, so warm.


End file.
